MIAMI — When you draw the ire of easygoing Dirk Nowitzki, you know you’ve messed up.

Nowitzki unleashed his anger yesterday on LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, who were caught on tape before Game 5 of the NBA Finals coughing in what appeared to be an attempt to mock Nowitzki — who coughed up a storm during Game 4, when he played with a 102-degree fever.

Wade yesterday denied the cough was a fake, but that didn’t appease Nowitzki.

“I just thought it was a little childish, a little ignorant,” the normally mild-mannered Nowitzki said. “I’ve been in this league 13 years. I’ve never faked an injury or an illness before. It’s not going to add anything extra to me. If you need extra motivation, you have a problem. We’re one win away from my dream, what I’ve worked on for half of my life.”

Nowitzki’s indignation could be due in part to the perception European players (he’s from Germany) are soft and flop during games. A Dallas victory tonight will ensure Nowitzki the Finals MVP Award — which would be the second for a European (Tony Parker, who was born in France, won it in 2007).

Wade said he actually coughed, then played it up, knowing a camera had caught it, testing to see if the media would bite. It seems, however, an odd time to be so cavalier.

“First of all it wasn’t fake coughing,” Wade said angrily. “I actually did cough. And with the cameras being right there, we made a joke out of it because we knew [the media] were going to blow it up. You did exactly what we knew. We never said Dirk’s name. I think he’s not the only one in the world who can get sick or have a cough. We just had fun with the cameras being right in our face. It held to be true. You blew it up.”

James would not discuss “Coughgate,” saying: “I’m not feeding into that. I think that’s a non-issue. There’s bigger issues in this series than that.”

Nowitzki’s Dallas teammate, Jason Terry, gave Miami bulletin-board material earlier in the series by saying James can’t hold him down for a full seven games.

“If you need anything other than the trophy to motivate you at this point,” Terry said yesterday, “you’re probably setting yourself up for failure.”